The Dog, the Rat, and the Boy
by concretya
Summary: Phelan is lost after a certain death, especially when his two worlds collide. Goodwin and Tunstall decide he needs a talking-to. Post-Terrier.


It was far from his first raid on the Court of the Rogue. No, in his time as a Puppy and then as a Dog, Phelan Maselon had been through plenty, and he could remember them all. (It was one of his faults, a near-perfect memory. A blessing, he had called it once, but now he recognized it for the curse it was.) He remembered his first one, as a wide-eyed Puppy, Vinehall and Birch aloof but not unkind. He remembered his utter excitement as they stood outside the doors, the epic feeling, as they burst through, that this, this was the culmination of his life and this moment would forever change him: well. A feeling he felt far more often than warranted. That first raid had been unremarkable, and the second; even the first as a full Dog, Tarn at his side, was not much different.

But this one was. This particular raid was a new first—his first on the side of the Rats. His first standing next to the Rogue as a rusher, the protector of a thief. The first facing down the Law, his friends, his former companions.

And he almost missed the feeling. Surely this occasion, finally, was one that warranted it—and yet he hadn't felt the same since Verene's death. It was almost as if he had lost something…

No. That was foolishness. He had been naïve, all those times, and it was no pity to have finally grown up (even if he did learn his lessons the hard way). And the way he kept carrying on like this was just proof that it had all been his imagination anyway. The excitement. The hope. No, the only thing he had lost was his wits—here the Dogs were, on their doorstep, and everyone else was frantic (except Rosto, Aniki, and Kora, of course, and they were maintaining more calm than their predecessors had been able to), doxies were shrieking, drunks were scrambling, and all Phelan could think about was how he wasn't excited. His brain was truly scrambled.

He forced a laugh—at himself, really, but also at this whole entire messed-up situation—and Rosto, in front of him, turned to look. Phelan grinned wryly at the man who was both King, recruiter and friend. Rosto winked back, opened his mouth as if to say something (really, Phelan wondered, were his own emotions _that _clear on his face that even the King of the Rogue took the time to notice? …well, yes, his mother had always told him that they were, and it was Rosto's job to be observant, after all) and was interrupted by the arrival of the Dogs.

If Phelan thought his mind was muddled before, it reached new fights during the ensuing scramble. With every face he saw he had to ask himself: friend, or foe? And then still the answer wasn't always true, and he would have to ask: old friend, or new friend? He played his part as a rogue, of course, and did it well, if he did say so himself, but he was hardly aware of what he was doing, just rhythmic spin, block, shove (no injuries, at least of his doing; he couldn't quite bring himself to draw a Dog's blood), and the whole time some part of him held back, asking the rest of him: what are you _doing_?

But then even that small part of him saw someone he could hate with ease, someone he _should _hate. Someone he did hate. And all the rhythm became true effort and he shoved through the crowds, no longer paying attention to which body was Dog or Rat, at his quarry, pulling his knives, finally, _finally_, and he set himself on Otelia.

Otelia.

The drunken bitch who'd led Verene die.

Phelan was almost surprised by the savagery he felt towards the woman in that instant as he set on her. She wasn't drunk tonight, though, and this made Phelan even angrier: _if you can contain yourself now, why not on Beltane? _He answered himself before the question even made it to his lips: because Verene hadn't mattered to her as much as her own life did. But it meant that she was alert tonight, with much more experience than Phelan. He caught her sleeve in the first angry blow, ripping a swath down her shirt and drawing a long, angry cut; she hadn't expected him to have a knife. He hadn't, either; knifing a Dog was much worse penalty than anything else he might have done tonight. But she recovered from the surprise and blocked his next attack, swung her baton. He dodged it more easily than a native Rat would have, considered in the briefest of seconds slipping back into the crowd to attack again from a different angle, and overruled it as too time-consuming for his anger. Otelia finally recognized him, as he opened another gash in her shoulder. He received her Baton to his left arm, for his trouble, and he heard something in it crack.

Then someone wrapped a firm arm around his torso and pulled him backwards, and he felt panic rising within himself, and the _need _to finish off Otelia. He struggled but the arm kept pulling, her face vanished into the crowd, his injured left arm pulled and almost made him cry out in pain (or maybe it did, and he just couldn't hear it above the din,) and she was gone in a sea of faces and he was well away from the fight itself.

Clary Goodwin threw him against the wall in a dark corner, and he realized he was crying.

"Pull yourself together, Maselon," she snapped.

Phelan curled protectively around his arm and, before he could help himself, told her to sod off.

She slapped him.

"The last thing I want," she said, "is for some bitter ex-Dog to end up on trial for the death of a current one."

Phelan looked up, warily, but (he was unable to stop himself, as always) hopefully; though he did wonder, because despite Beka's claims otherwise, he'd never seen Goodwin _kind _before.

"Think of the bad publicity," Goodwin added when she saw the young man look at her. But she met his eyes, and held fast.

"She deserves it," he said quietly. All anger gone; just desperation and conviction.

"Yes, she does," Goodwin said. "But so do you."

"I know," he said, as he realized exactly what he'd done. He'd tried to kill a Dog. A _Dog_. A law keeper of the city, not to mention one of his old comrades. He'd hated every single Dog funeral he'd been to—he got choked up at all of them. And he had tried to kill her. Had tried to cause another funeral.

"What are you doing, Maselon? Where are you going with this?"

"Or rather," said another voice, and Phelan broke his gaze with Goodwin to look up—_way _up, as Tunstall was tall by himself and Phelan was sitting on the floor—at Goodwin's partner, who was pulling over a chair to sit on. "Rather, _why _are you doing this?"

"I—" a glance at Goodwin, who hadn't changed her gaze at all, and back at Tunstall, the less imposing figure. "I have nothing else to do," he said lamely.

"Bullshit," Goodwin said, and while Tunstall frowned at her, he agreed: "That's not a good enough reason, lad. It may be a good enough reason for an ordinary cove to join the Rogue, but not a Dog."

"I… just wanted to join it."

"Why?"

"I… It feels right." Phelan blushed even as he said it (and what was he, a grown man, doing blushing? Not that he felt like a grown man around these two, or that they treated him like it. For that matter, maybe he didn't deserve the title anyway. And maybe the heat in his face was just from the throbbing of his injured arm, anyway.)

"More right than the Watch?" Tunstall pressed, soft, insistent.

"No," Phelan admitted, as much to himself as to the older man. He hesitated, almost frightened to say it, then added: "But… _as _right."

"Why did you join the Watch to begin with?" And the ball was back to Goodwin in this silent, speedy, graceful game that she and Tunstall played. Tarn was a dear friend, yes, but they had never worked _this _well as a team, and Phelan hadn't even spoken to his onetime partner since… well. Since his lover died. And Rosto was a friend, but not a close one. Phelan found himself a little jealous of the pair.

"It inspired me," he said.

"Does the Rogue?"

It was Goodwin who spoke, but Phelan looked at Tunstall as he answered quietly.

"Yes."

Tunstall frowned thoughtfully, and Goodwin continued. "And you left the Watch because of the girl who died, correct? Otelia's Puppy."

"Verene."

"Beka's friend," Tunstall put in.

"Yes."

"Is that the only reason?"

"No," Phelan answered softly, truthfully.

"Let me guess," Tunstall said, leaning closer. "You were upset at those who chose to give Otelia and her partner a Puppy, correct?" Phelan could only nod—and felt that he didn't even need to—before Tunstall went on. "A drunk, paired with a dullard. Given charge of a girl. How could the Watch be so unfeeling, you think. And then there have been more deaths lately, and, if I'm right about you, it's not just the deaths of the Puppies that bother you. All the deaths in the city, the crimes, the kidnappings that the Watch did nothing about until our Beka riled them—they bothered you." Phelan nodded again, and Tunstall concluded: "Am I missing anything?"

"Yes," Phelan said, surprising even himself with the ghost of his usual smile. "Ahuda."

"And what about Ahuda? Her unusually gruff demeanor—present company excluded, of course," Tunstall added, shooting a teasing look at his partner, "is it, or her uncommonly heavy baton? Or, maybe, the way she let Verene be assigned to that pair of Dogs in the first place?"

Phelan shook his head, although his arm twinged again at the mention of a baton, as if his injury had a life of its own. He resolutely ignored it, caught up in Tunstall's gaze ."No. The—the opposite, in fact."

"I see," Tunstall said slowly, and Phelan could see in the man's intelligent eyes that it was true. He really did see. He saw what Phelan meant, and more.

"Your real problem--" Goodwin started to speak from his side. Her voice was not unkind, but her partner nevertheless gently cut her off.

"—is that you're in love with being in love." he finished smoothly. Almost like a minstrel, Phelan would reflect later as he played this conversation over and over in his near-perfect memory. But now, all he could do was gape at this odd pronouncement.

"What?"

"What my partner means," Goodwin clarified, "is not love, as you think of your love for Verene, though that's part of it. He means—"

"I mean you're in love with the idea of passion. You join the Watch because it inspires you—or you think it does. You stick it out, because you love the feeling of being a part of it. You fall in love with a girl—and with a crotchety old commander—and when that's taken away from you, you have to find something else. Another King. Another court. Another cause."

Phelan was dazed. He tried putting his forehead in his left hand, and then remembered that his elbow was out of place, at the very least. So he simply ran a hand through his sweaty hair, and looked up at them.

"It's not a bad thing, necessarily," Goodwin conceded. "It is, after all, why Ahuda put you on one of the canine teams. A Puppy who can force himself to love Ahuda can make himself love a dog—but be detached enough to deal with, well, anything that might happen."

"I do miss Achoo," Phelan admitted.

"Tarn is looking after her quite easily," she said briskly, as if desperate to nip this newest grief of his in the bud, before they had to talk about him with it, too. "In the meantime, you need to go find whatever hedgewitch you have working here right now and get that arm looked at."

"Do you always diagnose people like this?" he asked; half-teasing, half-plaintive. Mostly grateful.

"Not usually," Tunstall said.

"But with you, it's rather easy," Goodwin added, and Phelan grimaced. Good thing he wasn't a double-agent, as his mother was apparently dead right about him wearing his heart on his sleeve. "Now, the fight seems about over, so it's time for us to part ways." She stood up and began walking away from the corner where Phelan was still crouched.

"Good luck," Tunstall said softly, and followed his partner.

Phelan was just closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall, not yet ready to take the mess of the inn again quite yet, not ready to go back into the world where his mind would probably slip back into indecision—if Tunstall was right, and Phelan suspected he was, the world where Phelan would spend his life chasing after things that would either hurt him or lose their enchantment. The world where he might again cross Otelia, and who knew if he could restrain himself then? Or if Beka's Dogs would be there to stop him? Or maybe he would cross Ahuda herself, or Beka and Ersken, or Tarn, anyone whom he loved...

"Maselon!"

He snapped his eyes open.

"I hope you won't be too offended," Goodwin had turned around to speak to him, "if I say that I hope we _won't _meet again."

Phelan smiled, raised his good right hand in a gesture of thanks and farewell, and could almost swear he saw a return smile twinkle in the corner of her eye. And he looked beyond her, and saw an outright grin on the face of Rosto the Piper, waving him over.


End file.
